Claire Hennessy's Blog, page 27

Bookfest!

For those of you that don’t know… October is the Children’s Book Festival, which means authors and storytellers and illustrators and other types are scurrying up and down the country delivering workshops and talks and events in libraries and schools. It is a brilliant and insane time of the year.

Children’s Books Ireland have lots more info here about the festival, and they also have a shiny and free Recommended Reads guide that comes out every year.

I’ve been doing things for the festival for the last number of years and every year I forget just how much energy you need to be around a bunch of kids, some of whom may not want to be there, and to try to get them excited about books and reading and storytelling and writing. Sometimes you get very lucky (happened me today, so off to a good start!) and they’re super-creative and full of ideas and the challenge instead becomes to try to make sure they’re getting words on the page instead of just keeping it all squished inside their brains. Sometimes they’re really interested in what you have to say about writing and publishing and ask loads of questions, or you end up having brilliant and mad conversations about books and stories, and everyone leaves fizzing with enthusiasm.

I’m doing a good mix of author visits and workshops this year and really looking forward to it. But oh the energy. Much tea. Much, much tea will be had. See you all on the other side…

Book-review post!

Four YA titles, one ‘new adult’. Books are shiny.

Elizabeth Wein – Rose Under Fire

Oh, this book. It is billed as a companion to Code Name Verity, rather than a sequel, and its main focus is a different character, but it is set later and does reveal a lot of key details about the first book, so do be warned. Its main focus is Rose, a barely-out-of-high-school American pilot who ends up in a women’s concentration camp during the Second World War, and writes about her experiences – not just the experience within the camp but also the difficulty of talking about it afterwards. The sharing it with others, who couldn’t possibly understand. This is a beautifully done novel and even more upsetting and harrowing than Code Name Verity – it is well worth reading but very intense.

Nicole Luiken – Angel Eyes

Angel and Michael return in the third instalment about the enhanced violet-eyed, this time featuring an escapade which draws on the historical immersion stuff that made the first book so fascinating and also the more recent growth of reality TV. (Elements of The Hunger Games, but very much doing its own thing as well.) This time the narrative splits between the two characters, and there are some nifty new characters and threads as well as some callbacks to previous books. Great to catch up with these characters – I really enjoyed the earlier books.

Rainbow Rowell – Eleanor & Park

Between this and Fangirl – oh, Rainbow Rowell, you write the pretty books of wonder. This is set in 1986, and is the story of two teenagers – Eleanor and Park – who sit next to each other on the bus and slowly, very slowly, become a couple. The tentativeness of this, the building up of a connection, the elaboration on all the little moments – it’s just gorgeous and teenage and perfect. It is also sad and astute at times, on social circles in high school and on the power that adults have over young people. I love this book. A lot.

Erica Lorraine Scheidt – Uses For Boys

Anna misses the tell-me-again times, when it was just her and her mother, before stepfathers and stepbrothers, before the loneliness, before the boys. This is a gorgeous, lyrical story about a girl leaving home and about what she expects from boys; it is painful at times but a marvellous read.

Cora Carmack – Losing It

A clumsy theatre-loving college senior and virgin hooks up with her new professor. Tension ensues. This was an okay read but not spectacular; the plot elements and development seemed quite formulaic and a little underwhelming. If this is ‘new adult’… hmm.

Book-review post!

Thoughts on some recent reads – mix of YA and 9-12s.

Sarah Webb – Ask Amy Green: Wedding Belles

The final book in the Amy Green features much drama as everything changes – Sylvie and Dave are finally getting married, Clover has an opportunity she can’t say no to, and things are rocky for Seth and Amy. This is a warm and funny closing to the series, even though fans will be sad to say farewell to Amy and Clover.

Abigail Haas – Dangerous Girls

Oh, so very twisty. This is Abby McDonald writing a thriller, and investigating a familiar theme for her – media representation of women – with a very dark slant. Our narrator is an American high school senior on spring break in Aruba; when her best friend is found dead she’s accused of murder. There’s a mix of first-person narration and transcripts, and it’s really nicely done – I loved the ending, I have to say. Most pleasing. Looking forward to more in this vein.

Holly Schindler – Playing Hurt

I loved Holly Schindler’s debut; this is a little more straightforwardly romance-y (and a holiday romance at that), which was lovely but did have a little too much of the instant-attraction thing going on. That being said, the characterisation is done really well, and the dual narration works nicely.

Marita Conlon-McKenna – Love, Lucie

Lucie’s mother has just died, and in the year that follows, she writes letters to her mum about what’s going on with her family and how they’re coping. She’s also convinced that she’s still seeing her mum around the place – and wishes she’d stay. The young voice and preoccupations are handled well here.

Elizabeth Scott – Heartbeat (via NetGalley)

Emma’s mother is dead. No. Emma’s mother is braindead, and she’s being kept on life support so that her pregnancy has the chance to come to term. The decision – made by Emma’s stepfather – is not one she agrees with, and it’s killing her to visit her mother in the hospital, there but not-there. When she meets bad-boy Caleb, with his own messy grief still haunting him, it’s the chance for a connection and a new kind of understanding of what she wants out of life. This is a thought-provoking read, although I did find it distressing at times (the parameters are obviously different, but it does call up a lot of the issues about pregnant women and choice and I would have loved it – spoiler – if Emma had been right and her mother had been terrified of pregnancy instead of having an idealised never-mind-me-think-of-the-baby view of things). That being said, fans of Elizabeth Scott will be glad to see her back with a new contemporary read.

Book-review post!

And some slightly shorter reviews of the grown-up books read over the last while.

Gillian Flynn – Sharp Objects

From the lady who brought us the twistedness of Gone Girl, here’s another tale of twisted dysfunctional ladies. Our heroine is a journalist revisiting her home town after the murder of a young girl, and revisiting the messiness of her home life. This is compelling and as elegantly written as Gone Girl, and is well worth checking out.

David Nicholls – The Understudy

Very very funny story about a struggling actor with the misfortune of having a famous name – Stephen McQueen is no hero, but someone who winds up in awkward, cringe-worthy, and eventually unpleasant situations. I love Nicholls’s other books, and this is a treat.

Jojo Moyes – Honeymoon In Paris

A prequel to The Girl You Left Behind, and certainly worth reading in advance – I got a lot more out of the book because of it. This is short but satisfying – two newly-married women, ninety years apart, struggling with their husband’s other passions.

Jojo Moyes – The Girl You Left Behind

And the book itself! The story moves between the present-day and the First World War, and is a fascinating look at ideas around art and ownership (especially as a lot of stolen-artwork tales focus on the Second World War), as well as the things people do in wartime. The portrayal of a woman waiting for her husband in an occupied French village is really well done, but the modern-day story – which is all about grief and trust and loss – is also fascinating. Just a great read.

Alissa Nutting – Tampa

This book’s been getting a lot of attention – it’s the story of a female sexual predator, a teacher with an obsession with eighth-grade boys. It is unsettling and compelling and fascinating and beautifully written and very dark indeed. (Most of my thoughts on this are how it’s been marketed – how almost every article has reassured us the author is nothing like her narrator, as though female writers are incapable of imagination and writing dysfunctional characters. Sigh.)

Matthew Quick – The Silver Linings Playbook

A guy just out of a psychiatric hospital teams up with a widow for a dance competition and in the process gets over his ex-wife. Also, sports. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the movie and – dare I say it – not especially overwhelmed by the book either. The narrator just seems too – simple. Perhaps that’s intended to be part of the charm, but the way he writes and phrases things sometimes felt like it was someone very childlike putting pen to paper. I was not charmed. I do hear good things about this author generally, though, so would be interested to read some of his other work.

Sophie Hart – The Naughty Girls’ Book Club

Oh, dear. So this is a story about a book club, a group of women (and one man) meeting to discuss erotic fiction of both the present and past, but the way they talk about sex is just so coy and ‘oh gosh did you just say that!’ that it is a little wearying. I can understand the desire to write something that is romantic but not explicit, but the title and the premise are perhaps not quite fitting. It is interesting to see some of the debates about erotic fiction and why people read it, definitely, but there is nothing extraordinary there.

Maeve Binchy – A Week In Winter

The final Maeve book. I’d been saving it for when I needed it. This is more one of those interlinked-short-story collections than a novel, but done beautifully; I wanted it to go on for longer but I did get caught up in all the different characters’ lives and the overall cosy-but-not-too-cosy feel of the book. A very comforting read.

Sophie Kinsella – Wedding Night

Not as mad about this one as I am Sophie Kinsella’s others, but I did enjoy this dual-viewpoint story about an impulsive romantic who decides to marry her first love – who’s just come back into her life after fifteen years – and her in-the-middle-of-a-messy-divorce older sister, who’s scheming to prevent the wedding from being consummated. It’s a little bit zany, but it is clever, and very funny.

J. K. Rowling – The Casual Vacancy

Read this post-reveal of Galbraith, which I meant to read and then realised I still hadn’t got around to this one. Or rather, I’d started and then been put off by the large cast of characters – even when returning to it I did find it tricky to keep track of who was who at first. This is the tale of a small town and the nastiness within it, as played out through the revelations after the death of local councillor Barry Fairbrother. It gets quite dark – there’s a lot of neuroses and dysfunction and all that jazz, and she’s particularly good on how teenagers can be utterly horrible to one another (as well as how messed-up families can be). It’s a bit of a grim read, and lacking some of the humour you’d hope for – I liked it, but probably wouldn’t have picked it up had it been by another author.

Book-review post!

I’ve been reading some proper grown-up books lately too, promise. But here are some thoughts on some recent mostly-YA reads.

Rainbow Rowell – Fangirl (via NetGalley)

I was excited about this book the second I heard about it, so it was a real treat to read it and find just so much in it to love. Cath has just started her first year of college, and for the first time isn’t sharing a room with her twin sister, Wren. Wren’s her best friend and in the real world, the more popular one – but in the world of internet fandom, Cath is a Big Name Fan with a following of her own. The Simon Snow books (a Potteresque series) are about to come to an end, and Cath wants to get her novel-length fanfiction (featuring the hero and antagonist in a romantic relationship) finished before the final book comes out. But as tempting as the world of Simon/Baz is, there are people in her life tugging her out of this fantasy land – her snarky roommate and the roomie’s boyfriend, the cute boy in her writing class, her sometimes-manic father, and her newly-returned-after-a-decade flighty mother.

This is a gorgeous read and despite having so much in it to love about fan culture and slash fic and all that, also has a lot of other stuff going on. Cath is a relatable and awkward character, the kind of girl who ‘smiles tensely’ in social situations and would much rather stay in and make up stories about other people’s fictional characters on a Friday night than go out partying. She’s spent years writing love stories but hasn’t really let herself love anyone – and, oh, god, the love story in this is gorgeous. (Spoiler alert: there is reading of fanfiction while snuggling. It is incredibly nerdy and incredibly pretty and I adored it so much.) And she’s haunted by her mother’s departure, and there are moments that will just break your heart.

I am so glad this book is in the world, and suggest you all go read.

Robyn Schneider – Severed Heads, Broken Hearts (aka The Beginning of Everything)

I loved this book, and I both love and hate the fact that so many of the reviews reference John Green, because oh good grief John Green is not the only smart snarky reference-y American YA writer out there. So I hope the attention the book gets because of that doesn’t mean that the book isn’t reduced to being Green 2.0, because honestly the main influences that struck me here were the Great American Novelists – F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger. There are references to The Great Gatsby peppered throughout and there is this lovely sense of reading the sort of classic self-reflective coming-of-age book that The Catcher In The Rye was (and still is) for so many people. Ezra Faulkner is a high school senior whose life was changed forever when a car accident put an end to his athletics career; the book is about what happens next and the semester that includes reconnecting with his childhood best friend, taking part in debate, and going on adventures with the mysterious and quirky Cassidy Thorpe. (I did ponder whether Cassidy was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, as you do, but she’s a deconstruction. And kind of a mess. I liked her.) There’s wit and wisdom and a lot of fun here, and a vivid set of characters (I loved Phoebe and Toby, especially) that stay with you after the story’s come to an end. Do check out.

Cathy Cassidy – The Chocolate Box Girls: Bittersweet

This is a short mini-book, originally released for World Book Day, which is told from the point of view of Shay – Cherry’s boyfriend and Honey’s ex. The story takes place after Honey’s started getting into a lot of trouble, and when she needs a shoulder to cry on, it creates complications for Shay and Cherry. There’s also a focus on Shay’s own dreams – Cathy Cassidy books are often about hopes and dreams – and what happens when your parents don’t support them. A short and (well, the title kind of says it) bittersweet look at these familiar characters.

Andy Robb – Geekhood: Mission improbable

I loved the first Geekhood book, which depicts the trials and tribulations of Archie, a self-proclaimed Geek with a ragtag bunch of pals and a yearning for the beautiful Sarah. This is the sequel, where Archie et al discover LARP-ing and the girls get involved –but things are made more complicated by Archie’s invented and showing-off-on-Facebook relationship with another girl. Archie’s also dealing with his dad’s new family, and the fact that his own father is starting to seem like – gasp! – a bit of a Tosser (like Archie used to view his own almost-stepdad) around them. This is pretty much what it says on the tin – completely geektastic. References to various fantasy/scifi/superhero things abound, but there’s also a fair bit of lusting after girls (and the sexual references are a bit more explicit in this one than the first – would say 12+ for this at least). Very funny, but still with a lot of heart.

Sarah Crossan – The Weight of Water

This novel in verse focuses on thirteen-year-old Kasienka as she moves from Poland to England; her mother is searching for her father, who walked out on them. At school, the teachers are mostly unseeing and uncaring, and the other girls are nasty; she’s picked on by someone she thought might be a friend and there’s no rhyme or reason to it. The one solace she has is in the water, swimming, where she meets someone who does care about her. This tackles a lot of dark issues but does so in an accessible and melodrama-avoiding way; the poetry is simple but effective. For 9+.

Streetcar!

A confession, if you will: I had never actually seen , or indeed read it in its entirety. Yet via cultural osmosis, and, um, The Simpsons (see below), I had a pretty clear sense of it. We all know the ‘Stellaaaaaaa!’ moment, but there’s more that’s seeped into our consciousness (along with snippets of academic criticism I’d come across, I think). Blanche DuBois is both a character and a character type, a kind of shorthand for ‘crazy lady’ to a certain extent.

So actually seeing the play in the Gate recently was a little like reading Dracula or Frankenstein or a Sherlock Holmes story for the first time; you can’t help but be influenced by all the media that’s come after those texts, and have a sense of the original that is part-accurate and part-obscured. And it can be difficult for characters in this context not to seem like caricatures – for Blanche not to be a hand-wringing Southern belle who cracks, for Stanley not to be a casually-misogynistic oaf, for Stella not to be a simpering fool.

I was completely sucked in. Completely. There’s often an artifice to theatre even at its most naturalistic, and this is a play with bucketloads of melodrama – but the performances were utterly super. Lia Williams as Blanche has been rightly praised in various reviews, and her own take on Blanche isn’t that she’s just a ‘broken’/'crazy’ lady:

“She can see the sparkly things. The magic. She’s funny, she’s complex, she’s fragile and strong. She’s all of woman, really.”

You’re torn between finding Blanche frustrating and endearing, between wanting to slap her and having uncomfortable prickles of recognition. She’s extreme, sure, and very much a product of her time, but she’s completely compelling. And Stella, too (Catherine Walker) is protective of both her sister and husband, genuinely wanting to believe the best of everyone but conscious of the choices she’s making in staying with Stanley, in putting up with him. And Stanley! Garrett Lombard is superb – funny, brash, part-amused by Blanche and part-resenting her. He is, of course, awful to her, and to Stella, and yet still sympathetic. I wouldn’t necessarily want any of these people around for dinner, but good grief do they make for an intense and extraordinary three hours of theatre.

It’s on at the Gate until Saturday 21st September, so if you do get a chance to go see it, would highly recommend it. And if not, well… there’s always Streetcar!

Book-review post!

Catching up on my YA book reviewy thoughts… some older, some new.

Natasha Mac a’Bháird – Missing Ellen

This is out from the O’Brien Press in autumn, and is told partly in letters from teenage Maggie to her wild best friend Ellen, who’s gone – but the how and why of it all remains a mystery to the reader until the very end. Maggie’s always been the quiet one who follows behind Ellen, and now she must deal with life on her own, and her growing connection with Liam, the boy who had a crush on Ellen until her disappearance. The concerns of female friendship (and schoolgirl politics) are particularly well handled here. Even though some of the content (alcohol! boys! gasp!) is quite teenage, I’d probably recommend this for 10+ girls.

Jenny Hubbard – Paper Covers Rock

This is a very pretty and elegant and gorgeous and messed-up book about boarding school in the 1980s, and the diary that one boy writes after the death of his best friend. Caught between the honesty his young English teacher hopes from him, and the scheming of his old remaining friend, Alex makes decisions that are not always easy and usually not comfortable. Literary allusions abound (especially to Moby Dick, which Alex is trying to read and behind a copy of which he hides this journal) and the writing is terrific. Very much enjoyed this.

Sheena Wilkinson – Grounded

Two years on from Taking Flight, Declan has a lovely girlfriend in the kind, gentle Seaneen, and a future that looks bright – until having to cope with a number of new responsibilities. Seaneen’s pregnant, and there’s a young local lad who’s clearly in serious trouble – but Declan buries himself in rescuing and trying to heal a traumatised horse instead. As with the first book, there’s no pulling of punches – bad things can and do happen. I did miss Vicky’s perspective, I have to say (I may be the only one), but this is a strong follow-up and a book well worth reading for the 14+ crowd.

(Those looking for a cheerful pony book may wish to consult Sheena’s latest novel, Too Many Ponies, which is for a slightly younger age group.)

Tumblring down the rabbit hole

You can tell I’ve been spending a lot of time around The Young People lately, as I’ve found myself dipping my toes into the murky waters of tumblr. We’ll see how that goes…

In the meantime, though, my current favourite quote (because the blog should not be neglected):

“Carpe diem. How annoying is carpe diem? How are you supposed to plan a life, a career, a family, if you’re always carpe-ing the diem? If we all seized every moment, of every day, there wouldn’t be doctors. Who would sit through med school? We’d all be too busy living in the now, whatever that means.”

- Grey’s Anatomy, 8×22

I think it applies to writing an awful lot, especially when you’re working on long-term projects. Too much carpe-ing and it just starts to look pretty darn similar to just flitting about the place.

You’re pro choice. Yes, you are.

You’re pro-choice. Yes, you are.

Either that, or you’re in denial, or have some very messed-up views about women. But I’m going to presume that you’re not.

We hear ‘pro-life’ tossed around as a term. It’s not an accurate one. Sounds good, of course. Makes it sound like anyone opposed is ‘pro-death’. Pro-baby-murdering, as they’d have it.

Here is what ‘pro-life’ means in the Irish context (and I imagine elsewhere): no legal access to abortion for anyone ever. Denial about the fact that sometimes terminating a pregnancy is absolutely necessary in order to save a woman’s life – and this coming after the absolute worst-case-scenario has happened in this country. It’s about embarking on propaganda campaigns, heavy on the misinformation and emotive language and messed-up techniques, when an extremely limited law that’s twenty-one years overdue is about to be brought in, which is about saving dying women. It’s about not believing that mental illness and suicidal tendencies exist. It’s about not trusting women.

It’s about denial. It’s denial about the thousands in this country who travel to England or elsewhere in Europe for abortions, or the hundreds more taking abortion-inducing pills. (Abortion-inducing drugs aren’t new, by the way – they’ve been around a hell of a long time.) It’s an absolute refusal to believe that there are unwanted pregnancies (which differ from unplanned pregnancies) and have always been unwanted pregnancies and (as medical science is now, anyway) will always be unwanted pregnancies.

Sometimes it might be because the baby won’t survive beyond the womb. Sometimes it might be because there are risks of serious birth defects. Sometimes the pregnancy may be the result of rape or incest. Sometimes the pregnancy may pose a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman. And sometimes it might be because a woman finds herself pregnant and realises: I don’t want to continue with this pregnancy. I don’t want to be, or am not equipped at this point in time to be, a mother. I don’t want to take care of a child, and I don’t want to undergo the significant strains and stresses this will put on my body, so giving a child up for adoption is not an option (and also I am conscious of the many flaws in situations where children are in care in this country). I don’t want to be pregnant. This is my body and I want to make a decision now, while there is still time, before there is a tiny human I need to worry about.

I can certainly see why people have issues with the last one. Call me sentimental, though, but I have a dream where every child brought into the world is a wanted one. Parenthood is a huge commitment, and not to be undertaken lightly. However. You don’t need to be fighting for access to free, safe, no-questions-asked legal abortion up until the end of a pregnancy in order to be pro-choice. I think very few people are fighting for that – there are limits. Everyone wants limits. (Often it’s: could the foetus survive outside the womb, and not be dependent on this one human for its survival? Hello there, cut-off point.)

The ‘pro-life’ crowd want this as their limit: no abortions ever. Never mind if you’ve been raped and traumatised and are thirteen years old and find yourself pregnant. Never mind if the foetus is threatening your own health, or even your life. No abortions ever.

This is not a humane argument. It’s a controlling one. It lacks a basic compassion towards women who may find themselves in incredibly difficult situations. It lacks empathy. You may feel abortion is wrong and not a choice you would make for yourself. That’s not ‘pro-life’.

‘Pro-life’ is when you say, this is how I feel, and therefore no woman ever, no matter how difficult her situation, should have access to safe legal abortion. Make it difficult for women in lower economic classes to access it, because of the cost and time involved in travelled – hell, make it a criminal activity! Why shouldn’t the woman who has an abortion after being raped spend longer in jail than the man who raped her, if he goes at all?

Sane people acknowledge that there are certain circumstances in which the best choice a particular woman can make is to have an abortion. Sane people acknowledge that abortions happen. Sane people understand that it is safer for women to access medical treatment that is legal and that doesn’t involve additional expense, travel, stress, or secrecy.

Being ‘pro-choice’ is not about what you would do in a crisis pregnancy. It’s not about what you would hope your family or friends would do, or what you know your church advocates. It’s what you think should be there in law to allow other women to make the decision that is sometimes the best possible choice for them.

It can feel sometimes that the ‘pro-life’ crowd are very loud. They are. They speak with one voice. ‘Pro-choice’ is everyone else. There is nuance. There are a wide range of opinions. It’s not necessarily about advocating ‘abortion on demand’ (horrible phrase). It’s about looking at the world as it is and seeing that abortions happen. That terrible things happen. That people can be in awful situations and sometimes abortion is the best possible choice. That abortions happen and when they happen illegally, or not under supervised medical care, it hurts – sometimes kills – women.

Look. The second you say, “In certain circumstances…”, you’re pro-choice. Welcome to the club.

Book-review post!

Five YA books plus one 8-12s this time around, featuring rehab and summer camp and weight issues and families and friends and angst. So, y’know, the usual.

Amy Reed – Clean

I have a weakness for teens-in-rehab stories, and this one is intense. Told from five different perspectives, it looks at both the intense time in treatment and what came before – the steps towards an addiction getting so out of hand that it landed them here. This shies away from easy answers and simplistic explanations, and features bucketloads of ‘issues’ without ever making them the sum total of what the characters actually are. Worth checking out.

Una La Marche – Five Summers (via NetGalley)

Summer camp novel! Four friends over the course of five summers at camp, plus a reunion – there’s a lot of flipping back and forth time-wise with this one. Emma, Skylar, Jo and Maddie promise to be best friends forever at age ten; at seventeen they’re finding out that life isn’t always that simple, and some secrets emerge that threaten to shake things up (although the more subtle growing-up, growing-apart has also taken its toll). Fun read, at times a bit predictable, but… summer camp! Yay!

K A Barson – 45 Pounds (More Or Less) (via NetGalley)

I really liked this book about weight loss and body image and the dieting industry of doom. Ann is sixteen and a far, far cry away from her teeny-tiny mother, or any ‘ideal’ weight. When her aunt Jackie says she’s getting married and wants Ann to be a bridesmaid (lovely twist on this: it’s a same-sex marriage, and Jackie is the sanest one in the entire family), it’s the catalyst for an infomercial-advertised weight-loss regime that… does not work. But making new friends, and exploring the relationship she has with food, and with her family, is what Ann needs in order to start feeling a bit more comfortable in her own skin. (But less, y’know, preachy and simple than that, because it does address the way in which it is far, far easier to be a thin girl in today’s world, and how eating and weight issues are complicated.) Recommended.

Ann M Martin – Ten Rules For Living With My Sister

Cute read for the 8+ crowd about Pearl and her has-everything-good-happen-to-her-ever older sister Lexie, and what happens when their grandfather comes to stay – forcing the girls to share a room but also to come to terms with what’s happening to him. Family, friendship and classroom politics feature heavily. The sequel, Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far), is now available.

Sarah Dessen – The Moon And More

I love love love Sarah Dessen’s books and I did love her latest one, which revisits the beach town of Colby that features in several of her other books. I love that we get to see a town that is ‘tourist destination’ for most other people through the eyes of people who live there all the time, and as ever there are some nifty references to familiar characters. That being said, I did miss the swoonworthy-love-interest factor that Dessen does so well – which is in some ways, it must be said, part of the point of this book. Emaline, the main character, is torn between small-town life and the opportunities that getting out of there would offer, and this is reflected in her break-up with longterm boyfriend Luke and a new romance with college-going, intellectual Theo. Theo is charming in some ways, and definitely has an appeal, but there are also many ways in which he’s not a dream guy (which the book is definitely conscious of). It was a really interesting relationship to portray, but… you’d miss the loveliness of Dexter or Wes or Owen. Anyway. That aside, there is general fabulousness about family – Emaline’s birth father and half-brother are in town for the summer, and she’s figuring out how to deal with them, alongside her own crazy-yet-loving family (her mom, stepfather and stepsisters). And there’s the intense filmmaker who’s determined to make a documentary about a reclusive local artist, which raises a lot of questions about small-town life and success. This book, more than Dessen’s others, makes me wish she’d write an adult novel – there is a richness here to the supporting characters that isn’t often found in YA, and it’d be great to see that play out in another field. For the moment though, this is another thoughtful and eloquent summer read for Dessen fans.

Dawn O’Porter – Paper Aeroplanes

Flo and Renee have never really spent much time together, but are brought together by first an embarrassing incident at a party and then a family tragedy. Set on Guernsey in the 1990s, this is a story of best friends and school pranks and family troubles and boys and sex and all those other good things. It does a good job at zooming in on teenage concerns, although some of the dialogue feels a little stilted (more contractions, please!) and at times some of the mean-girl stuff feels closer to thirteen than fifteen, particularly in the context of what else is going on.